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Sorry for the delay in getting this blog up...it's been a very busy week as you'll read. Hope you enjoy it. Day 24: Tuesday 19th April Today was the day after Phase 1 had left. It felt a bit strange on site, as there were all these new people taking over and working away. It felt like it might take a couple of days to get used to Phase 2 being here. The weather was pretty rubbish today too, very overcast and actually quite cold so it didn’t help with picking up spirits. Although the timber had arrived the day before, so there was a lot to be getting on with on site.
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| Concrete slab on the dining block being power floated |
The treated columns sections arrived with the timber delivery so the columns began to be made. Half were completed before the end of the day ready for the first lift tomorrow. The base plates for the trusses were secured into place and the slab for Classroom A was laid.
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| First classroom trusses and columns ready to lift |
Work on the toilet block also began today. The timber for the trusses arrived in the delivery yesterday so the pieces were cut and assembly began on the first truss. Jigs were also constructed to help with the construction.
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| First assembled toilet truss - mini jouberton style! |
Day 25: Wednesday 20th April
Today was the first day that trusses were lifted and the building came to life. The morning went by pretty quickly attaching the columns to the truss members. It’s quite difficult to line up about 5 pieces of timber that have all been individually drilled to get a bolt through them. With a little bit of patience though, it seemed to come together quite smoothly. Also with a bit of hammering and tweaking! In the afternoon we managed to raise the first two trusses. It felt like a very big achievement and we could see for the first time the scale of the buildings.
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| First truss in place |
The procedure to raise the truss is completely manual and all done with a bit of heavy lifting. The truss gets moved in line with the base plates. Ropes are attached to form as lifting and braking lines with teams allocated on all of them. The truss is lifted and raised and walked up with the use of the ropes. It is maneuvered slowly onto the base plates using levers and secured with two bolts. Once we had got the first one in place, the second one was a lot easier to get in place. The first truss was secured down with its ropes and once the second truss was in place, they were temporarily braced together.
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| Footing detail |
We managed to complete the set of columns and truss member for the third truss ready to lift the next day. Fingers crossed we can also get the fourth one ready and then lifted.
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| 2nd truss lifted in place and temporarily braced to the first one |
The sun eventually came out today, it got pretty hot – similar to the UK I guess! But I was very silly and forgot to apply my sun cream so got very burnt across my shoulders, chest and arms! Oops! Lets hopes it just tans.
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| Truss high in the sky |
Day 26: Thursday 21st April
The weather was looking pretty bad today again. It was very cold compared to what we were used to. During the morning on site we managed to complete truss 3 and 4 and just before lunch we raised truss 3 and secured it into place. By the end of the day the aim was to complete the trusses for Classroom B, however it had been threatening to rain all day and at just about 2pm the heavens opened and a storm hit the area. We all had to shelter from the storm and get the tools and equipment under cover as soon as possible. The trusses we had raised would just have to get wet and bear the brunt of the storm. Most of the team sheltered in the tool shed waiting for the taxis to arrive and some of us hid in the car. The rain was not letting up but luckily the taxis arrived within the hour and we made our way back to the Hotel. It was an early end to the day and a shame we couldn’t get the final truss of Classroom B up. We all just hoped not too much damage would be done to site and the materials.
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| The torrential storm hit |
That night, three of the guys from Phase 1 who had been travelling for the week came back to Tzaneen. They will be remaining with us for the rest of the build now. Some extra manpower is vitally needed. It was also 2nd year student, Laura Sheridan’s birthday so we headed out to Mozambique restaurant to let Phase 2 experience the amazing all you can eat prawns! All had a really good night and it was a great chance to get to know some of the new group. Today we had a late start to the day as I helped out the three Phase 1 guys with taking back their rental car and Laura was feeling a bit delicate from the night before. We managed to get to site and join the rest of the team about 10am but it had been quite badly affected by the storm. It was so wet and muddy. It was extremely difficult to walk in certain areas. The weather didn’t seem to be getting much better to dry out the site either. Let’s hope it picks up over the weekend. After cleaning the slabs we managed to start work on the final truss and other areas of work. The final truss of Classroom B was raised before lunch, which meant the first classroom was complete! It was a very exciting moment for us all as you can now really see the space of the classroom and how it fits of site. As it was now complete, work could begin on the intermediate columns on either side of the classroom. We marked up where the base plates would go for each one, drilled holes into the slabs, secured the bolts in and then the base plates. We managed to install one of the columns and prepared the rest for installation on Monday.
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| First classroom superstructure complete |
The WC trusses have been making progress and by the end of the day, 2 trusses had been completed. These are completely different in design to the classroom trusses. They’re like mini-Jouberton trusses if you’ve seen that project. The weather this week has had quite an effect on our schedule and we’re a little behind – well about a week behind if I’m honest. Hopefully this weekend we can put some plans in place to keep us on track and make sure we complete the 2 classrooms. I think this will be our last weekend off as over the next 2 weeks there is 4 bank holidays which means we are restricted by what we can do. With a bit of planning though I’m sure we’ll make it and finish the build. Day 28: Saturday 23rd April This morning we woke up yet again to the sound of rain. Great! Rather than spending the day just slobbing around in the apartment we headed out for a drive up the mountain to check out the adventure centre. As it was pretty cold, there wasn’t many activities going on but we arranged to come back tomorrow if the weather was better to go gecko-tubing. You travel down the river on small yellow dingy individually through rapids and waterfalls. Looked pretty awesome in the video we watched.
In the evening we ended up having a girly night watching films and chatting. As it turned midnight and we moved into Easter Sunday, I was able to have my first bit of chocolate for 40 days! Yay! Even though it was South African Cadburys, which isn’t exactly the same, it was amazing! Best thing ever! Can’t wait to try some more of the chocolate out here, the variety of Cadburys flavours is pretty great.
Day 29: Sunday 24th April Happy Easter Everyone!
Today we discovered a new supermarket in town and found some Easter eggs, well little kinder eggs. They would be our treat after finishing tubing. We headed back up the mountains, signed in and got kited out ready for our adventure.
Tubing was absolutely incredible! It started off pretty adventurous as one of the first challenges we had to tackle was jumping down 2 waterfalls. The first one was about 5m high and the girls nominated me to go first. It was so scary as for this jump you need to jump out further than normal as the rocks protruded out beneath. After a quick 3, 2, 1, the next thing I knew I was in the water and fine. Was so exhilarating. The next jump was 8m, so about the height of a 2 storey house. Luckily on this one there were no protruding rocks so not as scary but still so high. Over the rest of the trip we travelling through a few sets of rapids and floated along stretches of the river. I came off my dingy a couple of times but spent most of my time above the water. The last waterfall was absolutely stunning, we were only observing this one though as the water was flowing too fast due to the heavy rainfall lately. We walked round the edge and them swam across a safer area to get to the other side to finish our adventure.
We drove back to the hotel feeling very tired. We had a briefing planned in the evening so a quick shower, nap and food before rounded off a great day.
Day 30: Monday 25th April After the briefing the night before, we had a tight schedule and some high targets to meet.
In the morning we completed the columns for Classroom A in preparation for raising all the trusses in the afternoon. The intermediate columns were completed on Classroom B and the truss members were ready to be connected to the columns. We managed to connect the first truss member with its columns and raised it before lunch, 35mins ahead of schedule. Things were looking promising. The weather had also improved and at about 2pm we checked the thermometer on the car and it was at 41 degrees! Not sure it was that hot but we were all pleased that it was hotter than the UK for once this week!
The afternoon was extremely busy connecting columns to truss members and raising them. By 5pm we were a little behind schedule but the last truss was raised and we left site a little later than normal at 5:30pm having completed the superstructure for the classrooms. They look great and we now have so much to do to make them into classrooms. Only 10 days to go, let’s hope we can keep this productivity up.
In other areas on site, three WC trusses were completed and the final two have been assembled. We have run out of bolts temporarily and due to the bank holiday we are unable to get some more until tomorrow.
To celebrate such a productive day, we all headed out to Spurs for some food. John Ramsay also arrived back in South Africa after being back in the UK for 2 weeks. Another pair of hands on site is always useful.
Firstly I would like to apologise for the length of this blog before you read it. I haven’t had the time this week to update the blog as have been so busy and so many things have been going on. Now I have the time, it’s going to be quite an essay! Hope you enjoy it all though… Day 19: Thursday 14th April Today was a very productive day. We completed 6 trusses and we arrived on site to be greeted by the slab complete for Classroom B. Our contractor and his workers had worked through the night to get it complete as the last concrete truck left about 8pm on Wednesday. It looked really good and gave a real scale to the extent of work we still had to do.
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| Slab of Classroom B |
Phase 2 also arrived today and got to the hotel just as we got back from site. It was great to see the whole team together but there are so many of them. I thought 30 of them were hard to keep track of, now there’s double that! Luckily it’s only 4 days so let’s hope there’s no major problems. To welcome the Phase 2 to South Africa, we took them all out to Spurs for dinner, our local steak joint.
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| Kate angle grinding the bolts down |
Day 20: Friday 15th April Today the aim of the day was to raise a ‘fake’ truss to enable a press photo to be taken with the whole team under it. It would be our only opportunity to make it happen so we had to get it done.
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| Phase 1 team under the 'fake' truss |
Luckily we did at about 2pm in the afternoon and lots of photos were taken, many of Phase 1, as it was their last day on site. We ended up doing a lot of them graduation style – throwing our hard hats up in the air, not the safest moment I would like to add! Phase 1 had a bit of extra time on site as Phase 2 headed back to the hotel, mainly to finish off filming their footage of the ‘Satisfaction’ video they have been filming over the past three weeks. I have heard it is already in production so will let you known when it’s ready. It should be hilarious from the clips I have already seen. I would just like to add the boys have done it all, changing it a bit from the original.
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| Phase 1 boys 'graduating' |
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| Phase 1 girls |
In the evening we headed out for dinner at a local tavern and then back to the hotel for a few drinks before bed and an early trip to the worlds largest Baobab tree bar in the world.
Day 21: Saturday 16th April Today was quite an early start after quite a late night, especially for the majority of the group heading out to the Baobab tree that only got to sleep at 6am and we were leaving at 10am! It was a short-ish drive to the tree, unless you miss the turning (Dave!) but we got there eventually. It’s absolutely massive and the bar is pretty cool. I think someone had read it was in FHM’s top 10 bars in the world. It was a glorious sunny morning so we all got a cold Castle beer, sat under the tree and caught up on all the gossip from the night before. We headed back at midday to make sure we made it back in time for the handover BBQ.
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| Baobab Tree |
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| Bug at the Baobab |
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| Grumpy face in the Baobab tree |
On the way back we stopped to pick up some meat and drink for the evening at 3pm, checked everyone into the taxis and headed to a private game reserve about 10km out of Tzaneen for our feast.
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| Lake at private game reserve |
On arriving in the game reserve, we spotted ostriches, zebras, warthogs and impala. It was very exciting for the Phase 2 group as these were the first SA animals they had seen apart from the cows on the way to site! John greeted us. He invited us into the stockade area where the BBQ’s were burning and we would be safe from any intrigued animals. The electric fence was switched on! After a couple of drinks and assessment that the BBQ’s needed longer to get hot, we headed out into the reserve for a walk around. We didn’t spot many animals but there were some great views. We got a little lost in the bush, but after a few right turns we were back on track. We spotted some Kudu and headed back to the stockade for some food.
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| 'Hippy' the Hippo - 5 years old |
During the evening, a small group of Phase 1 held an awards evening for the leaving group. It was a great end to an amazing three weeks together and Sam Harding, our compare, did a brilliant job, even if he did lie to me about what my award would be! The awards evening rounded off our evening perfectly and after packing up we made our way to the taxis, only to be greeted by the local baby hippo. By the way, when I say baby, it’s about 5 years old and already the size of a small car! It’s pretty friendly but to ensure the safety of the students we got them all into the taxis quickly. The hippo began to get a little aggressive as we tried backing him away with the use of one of the bakkies. The taxi’s managed to get out and away but the staff team were still stuck. We realised we’d left the fires burning too and the only way to get back to them was to jump the electric fence and then a wooden fence, quite an adventure especially as the heavens had just decided to open too. By this point the hippo was beginning to bite the bakkie, we managed to entice it away with a few bits of bread. Awesome experience feeding a hippo! We managed to escape after a few hairy moments and managed to get back to the hotel safe and sound. Day 22: Sunday 17th April It was an early start today (really could have done with a lie in) but we had offered to take a student to Polokwane to catch a flight to visit her Dad in Johannesburg before she flew back to the UK on Monday. We managed to fit in a cheeky cooked breakfast at Spurs before heading up the mountains towards Polokwane. After finding the airport and making sure the student was all checked in, our aim was to get inside the World Cup stadium built in Polokwane. Peter Motaba stadium held some of the world cup matches think Argentina may have played there but was mainly a practice venue for many of the teams. The Kaiser Chiefs had just played there the night before (not the band, the SA football team). It’s a shame we didn’t know as would have been great to watch it, they’re one of the best teams in the country. We luckily managed to get inside the stadium after sweet talking one of the security guards and stand on the pitch. Think we pushed our luck though as we tried to walk around the pitch. He didn’t seem too annoyed but we did make a quick exit.
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| Inside the Peter Mokaba Stadium |
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| Outside the Peter Mokaba Stadium |
We took a drive around Polokwane, not much to see really and its quite run down and then headed out to a brand new shopping mall just outside of the city to find some food for lunch. The mall had only just opened the week before and was heaving. It was quite odd as it felt just like any other shopping centre and could have easily been in the UK. We had a bit of a wander around, checking out the SA football and rugby shirts and brought some lunch. We headed back to Tzaneen about 3ish, getting back in time for our briefing session to Phase 2 and de-brief for Phase 1. Last night we had issued the proposed plan for the next three weeks with our aim now to achieve two classrooms by the end of our stay in SA. This is a realistic target due to the problems and issues we have had to deal with over the past three weeks and with the funds that we have. The Phase 3 team was eager to go and after saying their goodbyes to Phase 1, headed to site to begin their construction time.
I stayed behind at the hotel to make sure Phase 1 got off safely. It was quite sad to watch them all go, an end of an era in a way. They have been a great group and are an amazing bunch of people. They didn’t seem very happy to leave but it may have been the 6-hour coach journey they had ahead of them to get to the airport!
Today was a delivery day on site, as the base plates for the main trusses arrived, the timber for the rest of the buildings including the toilet block arrived in the afternoon, steel mesh for the next slabs was dropped off and the concrete trucks arrived late afternoon to begin pouring the dining block slab.
The students were keen to get on with tasks but due to the late arrival on the timber, only the main truss beams got completed. The team began leveling out the site and a small team surveyed the site to clearly understand what levels we are dealing with.
Think i'll leave it there for now as this is ridiculously long! Will hopefully get some pictures added to these soon but the internet cafe computers were broken last time so fingers crossed they're fixed next time we go.
Catch up with you soon,
Helen
Day 14: Saturday 9th April
 After a very frustrating week waiting for materials, the weekend couldn’t have come sooner. We left late on Saturday morning heading East towards Kruger National Park, entering the park at the Phalabora Gate. We managed to pick up a few guidebooks, which had some awesome picture pages in of all the animals to identify them with. It became a bit of a running joke as every animal we saw, Dave (technician) had to stop and tick it off! The drive through Kruger to our accommodation took longer than expected as you’re only allowed to drive at 50kmph. We managed to see some steinbock, waterbuck, and many birds including an eagle, a lone buffalo and some fighting elephants. I originally thought they were a large grey rock but they happened to move just as we were passing. Got some great photos too.The accommodation at Mopani was great. Small, thatched cottages with open air kitchens and bbq’s. Just enough space for the four of us and a great space to cook up all the meat we had brought earlier in the morning.
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| Amazing coloured bird |
We headed out straight away on our first safari of the weekend, a sunset drive. It started off pretty warm but rapidly got very cold and the blankets were much appreciated. We saw lots of animals including elephants, buffalo, impala, warthog and lots of birds that are brightly coloured. We also saw a crocodile. We watched the sun set over the park and drove for a while in the dark. We had the use of spotlights, which we used to look for sparkles in the bush – the animals eyes.
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Sunset over Kruger National Park
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After warming up from the drive, the boys managed to get the bbq lit (after much effort I would like to add!) and we cooked the feast, porterhouse steaks, chicken kebabs, steamed courgettes and mushrooms, corn on the cobs and the boys still had room to eat boerwors (beef sausage). Yum! It was an early night for all, as we had a 4:15am start to look forward to. Today began with a very very early start. Safari set off at 5am. It was so cold but worth it. The sunrise was stunning and we managed to get some great shots of some giraffe in silhouette against the sun.
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| Giraffes at sunrise |
We saw so many giraffe, buffalo, impala, elephant and many more. We managed to get back to the resort in time for breakfast and to check out.
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| Buffalo |
We then drove across the park to Letaba, another resort. It has an amazing view across the river where you can watch elephants wading through the water. We then headed back towards the gate only to be stopped by a stubborn elephant. It seemed to be quite a young bull that enjoyed walking in the road. We stayed quite a distance from him as he started to get a bit aggressive. However a golf, hedged its bets and tried to get past the elephant, only to be chased down by it. Luckily the car got away. It was quite funny to watch. We saw many more elephants on our journey out of the park, including baby ones. It was quite an uneventful drive from the gate to Tzaneen and back to the hotel. We all had a relaxing evening back in the apartment preparing for a hopefully busy week ahead.
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| VW Golf trying to get round the elephant! |
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| Zebra |
Day 16: Monday 11th April
The timber arrived today!!! Wahoo!!!!! This meant that we could actually get on with the project and were not limited by the lack of materials or tools. The workshop was set up and after a little break to establish the most efficient way to use the timber we assigned teams to begin marking up with sections. It took a while for everyone to get their heads round the process but eventually the production line began to flow – marking, sawing, marking the holes, drilling and then placing ready for assembly. By the end of the day we had enough pieces to construct the first truss. Just placing it together to check everything was in the right place. Luckily it was so the process could continue the next day.
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| Alfie and Josh chilling out in their wheelbarrows |
There was also a team working on the toilet block, digging the secondary trench to place the Ecosan toilets (composting toilets). It needed to go down to 1.2m so it was quite a challenge. The team did really well and managed to reach their target by the end of the day. In the evening we all headed out to Mozambique restaurant at the dam for all you can eat prawns. Amazing! Day 17: Tuesday 12th April Today was much the same as yesterday but at a faster pace. Everyone was getting the hang of the process of making the trusses. Lots of marking, cutting and drilling occurred. We managed to assemble one more truss completely, hitting our daily target and had a set of pieces ready to go for truss 3 for the following day. We got hold of some clamps too which helped significantly as so much of the timber is bowed in odd directions. It’s quite a challenge to place a bolt through 3 pieces of timber, which have all been drilled separately. However, the assembly has been going quite smoothly and apart from a few missed holes, we haven’t had any major issues. The majority of the week will be making the trusses. Phase 2 arrive on Thursday so we’re all looking forward to that. Sadly though that means phase 1 only have 6 days left in South Africa L Day 18: Wednesday 13th April Today was a really long but productive day. Progress on site is speeding up and the students have been getting much more efficient with making the trusses. All the timber pieces have now been marked and cut and the final few are just waiting to be drilled. We managed to complete 4 trusses today, which means were on track to complete the 8 trusses (2 classrooms) by the end of the week.
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| The payment goat to be given to the village Chief |
Today was also quite an eventful day as we got to visit the local secondary school and meet some of the students there. We were put in pairs and placed infront of between 50 and 150 students in a class. It was quite crazy and felt quite intimidating. I was partnered with Dave and luckily our class was quite well behaved. They asked a few questions about the project but wanted to know about the UK and our lives there. Our aim of the talk was to motivate them to stay in education and try and get into University. There were a few awkward moments and a couple of language misunderstandings but I think it went well. It was so crazy trying to leave the class and we received many thanks, hopefully we got through to at least one of them. I tried to take a photo at the end of the class and they all went crazy. They then proceeded to take lots of photos of me and the majority of them tried to shake my hand too. Dave had escaped and left me to cope with it all! Back on site, the first concrete truck had arrived! Yay!!!!! Followed closely by the second. The slab began to come to life but by the time we had left site for the night, no more trucks had arrived so not sure what we’ll see when we get there in the morning…watch this space!
Day 9: Monday 4th April
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| Making work benches |
The start of Week 2 began with a design and construction challenge for the whole team – to design and construct a stable workbench! The students were split into groups of about 4 or 5, led by a 5th Year student and given a couple of hours to come up with suitable designs. After lunch construction commenced on site…there were quite a few variations, A-frames, box sections and even tension cables. They all produced great tables in the end but with rain looming across the mountains we left site around 4pm to be greeted by a tropical storm once we got back to Tzaneen. It was absolutely crazy! I have never seen rain like it and it went on for so long. All through the night, the thunder and lightning was so loud barely any of us got any sleep. We just hoped there hadn’t been much damage to site. I have uploaded a video of the storm if you want to check it out!
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| Dale and Zeinab cutting up some timber |
Day 10: Tuesday 5th April
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| Local children on site |
A trip to the sawmill of the suppliers of the timber was organised for today. The majority of the group went out to that and they seemed to enjoy it. They had the afternoon off to do what they wanted as we were waiting for materials to be brought and arrive on site. Concrete, timber and steel deals were still happening so it was just a waiting game to see what came through. In the afternoon, there was another tropical storm. A few rooms got flooded but no major damage done. In the evening we had a really good planning meeting, preparing for the next week and looking at our options if materials were not available or money wasn’t available. The 5th year team was also given a briefing and the 2nd year students would receive theirs first thing in the morning. As progress has been quite slow due to procurement issues, the teams were feeling a bit in the dark. Hopefully the briefings filled them in on what is going on and the progress we’re hoping to make in phase 1. We aim to get all the concrete down and the trusses for a classroom raised by the end of Week 3. Lets just hope the materials arrive in time and the concrete gets laid by the end of the week. After a successful meeting we all headed out for dinner at the local steak house. They were also showing the Spurs vs. Real Madrid match so think that was the main reason we headed there! More rain fell during the night but luckily nowhere near as bad as the previous night. Just hope site isn’t too damaged again. Day 11: Wednesday 6th April
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| Finishing off the shelter |
Wednesday was the first day of planned construction. After an extremely successful planning meeting the previous night, a list of actions were drawn up to be carried out the following day. The timber was due to arrive in the afternoon so a lot of preparation work had to happen to get ready for making the trusses. Firstly the students began clearing a level area for placing the timber and assembling them. This actually turned into a bit of a patio that is so very British! Quite funny too! The workbenches that were constructed on Monday were also completed and set up underneath the shelter, dug into the ground and leveled out. It should be a great workspace to build the trusses in and any other construction that needs to happen. Students were all issued with tools kits as well today. Each team received a kit with various tools, including hammers, saws, set squares etc. and each individual received a carpenters pencil and a tape measure – don’t say we’re not generous!! They all seemed pretty pleased with their presents though. We managed to finish off the shelter too, covering it with a waterproof and sunshade fabric. After staying an extra hour on site than the rest of the team, it was complete. It actually looks quite like a party venue, with the patio a.k.a the dance floor, and the shelter looks very like a bar with all the tables along the back. Potential use if the school doesn’t get built!! I ended up having a very early night, in bed by 9pm as was absolutely shattered. Luckily there were no tropical storms! Day 12: Thursday 7th April Thursday was quite a slow day as most of it was spent waiting for the timber to arrive. There weren’t many tasks for the students to do on site as they had successfully completed them all the day before. A few adjustments had to be made to the shelter to tie it down a bit more and a few of the tables had begun to sink, so they needed foundations. We managed to set up the benches ready for the timber to arrive and learnt how to use the mitre saw and pillar drill we have brought to construct the trusses. You can sense the team are started to get a little agitated waiting for the timber but fingers crossed it arrives on Friday.
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| Jyothi and Fatima learning how to use the pillar drill |
We decided to have a later start in the morning so we don’t waste time on site just waiting for materials which meant we could all head out for a couple of drinks at the local bar and have a bit of a lie-in the next day. I managed to win two games of pool sinking the black in the second match to secure the win! Good night had by all! Let’s just hope the timber arrives tomorrow otherwise not sure what we’re going to do. The steel was delivered for the foundations so hopefully the first concrete slab should go down tomorrow…all we can do is hope. Well today didn’t really go too great. We had a later start than normal so we didn’t have to wait around on site for materials. However still no materials showed on site, something about payments not going through. On a more positive note, the boys created a sign for the shelter (BAR) as it looks like it should be one. We also leveled the secondary slab section of the toilet block. Concrete is also ready to be laid, just waiting on the formwork to be finished. Also just at the end of the day we found out that the timber would be delivered to site on Monday morning at 8am. This was after John E took the ‘direct approach’ going down there with 2 of our strongest/tallest/muscle students to aid the process. We all finished with a drink in our newly named shelter and an excited atmosphere ready for the weekend ahead and a fresh start on Monday. Fingers crossed progress speeds up, next week is very critical.
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| We even had time to make a tool tidy! |
We’re all off on safari for the weekend, so will update you all again on progress after that. Hope you’re enjoying the sunshine in the UK!
Day 4 – Wednesday 30th March: Today was our first day on site actually working. It was quite a delayed start due to trying to get hold of tools but the task for the day was to dig the toilet block foundations and set up a shelter to work under. The team was raring to go and after marking out the correct area, digging commenced. We also dug the foundation holes for the shelter, which didn’t take too long. The heat was quite intense, so we took regular breaks and I now have a peeling back to show for it! The majority of the trenches got dug with only a minor issue of one of the pick axes breaking in two! There are some pretty strong guys out here! We finished a little early as everyone was suffering with the heat and going quite red. <>
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| That's not a tan, that is muck! |
After a hot shower to get clean, we all headed out to celebrate one of the teams 21st birthday. We found this awesome restaurant on the edge of the dam to watch the sun go down and then ate all you can eat tiger prawns for only £8 each, bargain! We had a few more drinks, heading on to a further bar for some pool and dancing.
Day 5 – Thursday 31st March: Today was another day on site, finishing off the trenches and shelter. We were all feeling a little delicate from the night before, but you only turn 21 once right! The digging of the trenches got completed and we also leveled out the area. Some of the team even got to learn out to use the surveying equipment.
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| Digging trenches |
Progress was made on the shelter too with all the gumpoles being cemented in. Mixing the cement was tough work especially as it dries out so quickly under the African sun. My arms definitely got a good work out!
We had a really chilled out evening and discovered the local Internet café so hopefully now a few photos will get attached to these blog entries. I’ll also try and upload a few more video blogs too to keep you all entertained!
Day 6 – Friday 1st April: Friday began with a little April fool as the materials didn’t turn up on site on time…everything runs on African time, which means things will arrive usually a day later than they say! Luckily it only turned out to be an afternoon later so we had a few hours to kill. We ended up heading up the mountains to a local wildlife reserve to try and see some zebras, impalas and some deer like animals. However, all we saw were some cows! Reckon the sun was too hot for them all. We managed to explore a waterfall and found some amazing butterflies. I should be able to upload some photos of them soon. You should all be impressed to hear we also found some MASSIVE spiders in HUGE webs and I managed to get quite close to them, close enough to take some pretty good photos. I was quite proud of myself, as they were horrid! We managed to see a few monkeys as we headed out of the reserve, so it ended up being quite a successful mini break from site.
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| This is actually about the size of my hand! ew! |
Once we got back to site the materials had arrived so it was straight to work attaching the bracing to the shelter. It didn’t take us too long but trying to hold a purlin at 3m when you’re only 1.56m high is quite a challenge! We sorted out some platforms in the end so the job got done.
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| Catherine, Dave, Ellie, Sam and Me after finishing the temporary shelter |
Friday night was our first night out without an early start the next day so it ended up being quite big one. Team bonding is the key to all projects! We found a couple of great bars, had a few drinks and danced a lot. I even managed to not any of my drinks all night!
On a domestic note…we managed to find a laundry so you should be pleased to hear I have now got some clean clothes!
Day 7 – Saturday 2nd April: After a later start than normal, we headed out for a fry up and a pretty chilled out day sorting out a South African phone, getting some food in and chilling by the pool. An early night was very needed as we had a 5:45am start the following day for a day out to the third biggest gorge in the world.
Day 8 – Sunday 3rd April:
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| Dam |
Today was an AWESOME day. It was an extremely early start and quite a long drive to begin with but our first event of the day was a boat trip along the river flowing at Blyde Canyon, however it is a gorge. It is stunning down there, just amazing scenery all around, further than you can see. We actually saw some hippos in the river just enjoying the morning sun, got a few photos but you can only see their ears and eyes. Pretty cute though! We were on the river for about an hour. After than we began a drive around the area and national park taking in mountain passes, further awesome scenery, small villages in the middle of nowhere and random cows in the middle of roads. We stopped at Echo Caves and adventured underground for a view of some South African stalactites and stalagmites. There was a lot of ducking and diving in the caves and so many steps to get out of them, definitely felt the burn on the thighs but it was definitely worth it. We took a further small journey down the road to stop for lunch at a viewpoint overlooking the whole gorge, felt like you were on the edge of the world. Found some local residents too in the form of bright red and green lizards. I reckon there were quite a few snakes lurking in the grass but we didn’t dwell on that too much!
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| Hippos in the wild! |
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| Green and red lizard |
After a good break we headed out on the road again to God’s Window, which is the highest point in the area, over 1700m (higher than Ben Nevis) to look out over the whole of Kruger National Park. This was a slight let down as the clouds came in and we were actually in them once we got up there. All we could see was grey! Very odd feeling clouds passing over you however it is quite refreshing too. There was also a mini rainforest at the highest point, which was a pleasant surprise and a welcomed relief from the intense heat. We turned round at this point heading back to Tzaneen. I think we covered about 400km. Luckily I wasn’t driving. Can’t wait til next weekend now, as safari was confirmed in Kruger National Park.
We got back to the hotel about 8pm, only to be greeted by the craziest storm I have ever witnessed which hit about 10pm. It went on for about 6hours keeping most of us up all night. Rivers were running down the roads and the thunder was so loud. I can understand now why the area has had so much flooding lately.
I’ll try and get some photos up soon and some more video blogs, I’ve taken a few, I just need to find some time to head out to the internet café. Hope all is well in England and everything is good. Catch up with you soon.
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